Personal Branding in a Virtual Age with William Arruda | The Good Leadership Podcast #88

William Arruda is an entrepreneur, speaker, and the world's leading authority on the topic of personal branding. He's the bestselling author of the definitive books on the topic: Digital YOU, Career Distinction, and Ditch. Dare. Do! He has delivered presentations to many of the world's most revered brands including American Express, BP, Google, Gucci, LinkedIn, Microsoft, and Target. As a personal branding pioneer, he has been credited with turning the concept of personal branding into a global industry.

William was named by Global Gurus as the World's #1 Branding Expert in 2022, and he received the Chair Award from the International Coaching Federation (ICF) for his contribution to the field of coaching. He has appeared on the Discovery Channel, BBC, CBS, and NPR and has been featured in 1,000+ publications, including Time, the Wall Street Journal, Fast Company, GQ, and the New York Times. He regularly shares his thoughts on personal branding in his Forbes column, which has attracted over 17 million views.

William's Books: https://williamarruda.com/books/

William's Forbes Column: https://www.forbes.com/sites/williamarruda/?sh=2fee5b26668d

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Learn more about IMS and future sessions with thought leaders like William Arruda: https://ims-online.com

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Connect on LinkedIn - https://linkedin.com/in/charlesagood

Chapters:

(00:00) Introduction

(01:53) William Arruda’s background

(03:25) Significance of Personal Branding  

(05:34) Personal Branding is being selectively famous

(06:30) Tool: Match first, stand out second

(08:08) Maintaining a digital identity 

(09:38) Building a Personal Brand 

(10:45) Positioning your brand 

(12:32) 3 Stages of Building a Powerful Brand: Undifferentiated, Distinguished and Demanded 

(14:18) Building brand is a lifelong process

(15:18) Identifying things that makes you stand out

(17:19) Creating brand disciples 

(18:54) Delivering value at work

(20:24) Proactively seek feedback to build stronger brand

(21:27) Anonymous feedback tool for Senior Leaders 

(22:45) 6 categories of content for your story

(24:53) Every decision is made based on emotion

(26:56) Conformity is the problem with elevator pitches

(28:31) Tip: Recommendations to create a great elevator pitch

(30:40) Self awareness is a core element for successful leaders

(31:54) Building your LinkedIn profile

(33:25) Moving content beyond page one of Google

(35:11) Tip: Focus on quality not quantity in your LinkedIn profile

(36:25) Tip: Importance of Headshots on LinkedIn 

(37:41) Tip: Improving your LinkedIn headline

(39:00) Tip: Building a compelling LinkedIn about section 

(40:46) Being opinionated helps in Personal Branding

(41:37) Tip: Rearranging endorsements to make relevant ones appear at the top

(42:15) Tip: Choose your own URL for LinkedIn

(43:29) Tip: Use consistent color and fonts to stand out 

(45:10) Reusing and repurposing the same set of brand identity elements

(45:56) Information to include in your emails and signature

(47:51) Be promiscuous while building connections 

(50:26) Remaining visible to your community/network

(51:27) Content creation is a powerful way to differentiate yourself

(52:44) Tool: The Strawberry Test

(54:23) Curate content if you don’t want to create

(55:43) Repurpose content into different formats

(57:35) Key takeaway

(58:33) Conclusion